Bus Stop – stranded strangers interact on an unexpected weather related overnight layover – on stage Sept 12 to Oct 4, 2025 (Toronto)

Bus Stop is set in a diner/bus stop in rural Kansas, outside Kansas City, MO in early March 1955. A freak snowstorm has halted the bus, and the eight characters (five on the bus) have a weather-enforced layover in the diner in the early hours of the morning. Romantic and quasi-romantic relationships play out.

SNAPSHOT REVIEW

This is a slow moving piece that takes time to build up character development. The only one memorable scene is when the bus patron participate in an ad-hoc open mic at the diner. This is when the actors finally get a chance to shine individually in their character profiles. Other than this, it’s just a very long, uneventful lacklustre production based out a dated story that doesn’t carry well into current times. A disappointing start to the season, in hopes that future productions will shine as is typical of Village Players.

Bus Stop originally opened on stage March 2, 1955 and closed on April 21, 1956, running for a total of 478 performances and was nominated for four Tony Awards.  A cinematic adaptation was filmed in 1956, featuring Marilyn Monroe.

The play received major revivals in the United States and United Kingdom in 2010 and 2011, when The Guardian wrote of a production at the New Vic that:

“There is something beguiling about this slice of Americana, which mediates on the distances between towns and the distances between people, like an Edward Hopper painting with dialogue.”

Upper row:
Matthew Taylor as Carl
Sandy Ramdin as Grace Hoylard
Ryan Schnitzler as Bo Decker
Nikki Barran as Cherie
Lower row:
Jerry Logan as Virgil Blessing
Steve Ness as Dr. Gerald Lyman
Spencer Allder as Elma Duckworth
David Borwick as Will Masters

Bus Stop – Village Players Playhouse – 2190 Bloor St W, Toronto – Sep 12 to Oct 4, 2025 – 416-767-7702

Tickets

Playwright – William Inge

William Inge, (1913 – 1973) was an American playwright best known for his plays Come Back, Little Sheba, Picnic (for which he won a Pulitzer Prize), The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, and Bus Stop. All four were also made into successful films. Inge received an Academy Award for his original screenplay Splendor in the Grass (1961).

Inge taught school from 1937 to 1949 in Kansas and Missouri, also serving as drama editor of the St. Louis Star-Times. Encouraged early on by Tennessee Williams, Inge was one of the first American dramatists to deal with the quality of life in the small towns of the Midwest, and was called “the most successful and acclaimed playwright in America in the 1950s”.  He continued writing in the 1960s and early 1970s, but with lesser success.

Some have speculated whether it was his later lack of success, or his alcoholism, or the pain of being a closeted gay man which led to his death at age 60 by carbon monoxide poisoning in his own garage.  A man of great talent gone far too soon.

Director – Larry Westlake

This is Larry’s directing debut for Village Players, but he’s no stranger to community theatre in Toronto, having been involved at Scarborough Village Theatre for 40 years.  (He played twin Russians in a 1985 play – one alive and one dead.) Other roles and jobs followed at both Scarborough Players and Scarborough Theatre Guild, and at Capricorn 9 Productions, the east end theatre he founded, including producer, choreographer, designer, Board member including President  . . . and director of such plays as The Pajama Game, Hey, Marilyn, Thrill Me, Picnic, California Suite, The Glass Menagerie, Last of the Redhot Lovers, Tribute, An O’Henry Christmas, A Red Plaid Shirt, Jake’s Women, Arms and the Man, You’ll Get Used To It – The War Show, and Pygmalion (June, 2025).

We’re lucky to have persuaded Larry to venture to the west end to direct this wonderful play by William Inge.  As Larry told us:

“This classic comes from what I like to call The Golden Age of Broadway Plays, that also includes The Rainmaker – Village Players’ first-ever play, back in 1974. I did get a chance to direct a successful production of Inge’s Picnic in 2015 for Scarborough Theatre Guild, but Bus Stop is still, and always will remain, on my list of top shows to do.”

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist with a focus on travel, lifestyle, entertainment and hospitality. He has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He enjoys discovering delicious eats, tasting spirited treats, and being mesmerized by musical beats.